


Ghost of You

by hallucinogencoffee (RavenPseudo)



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: ... And Angry, ... And a Ghost, Connor Being Confused, Eventual Fluff, Kinda time travel?, M/M, Slow Burn, ghost au, trigger warning: suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-10-07 06:06:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17360444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenPseudo/pseuds/hallucinogencoffee
Summary: "  When Connor woke up, the ground beneath him was cold and rough.  Even before he opened his eyes, Connor knew that that was wrong.  His memory was hazy at best, but he remembered enough of his last moments of consciousness to know that if he was waking up, it should have been in a hospital bed.  Unless, perhaps, he'd been wrong about heaven and hell's existence, but a cautious peek from between barely open eyelids didn't reveal fire and brimstone.  Instead, he was lying on the pavement in front of a store that he vaguely recognized having seen before.  "OR Connor dies, wakes up again, and finds that 1) he can't touch anything, 2) no one except Evan Hansen of all people can see him, and 3) for some reason every time he wakes up, an Evan Hansen of some age appears soon enough and he can't fall asleep again until... something happens.





	1. Chapter One: A Shot of Truth

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING - The beginning of the first chapter follows Connor's suicide, which will continue to be mentioned throughout the work. If suicide or overdose are triggering topics for you, I would highly recommend that you skip out on this work. Stay safe, people.
> 
> So uh... this is my first published work and I don't know how publishing on this site works so excuse any errors while I figure out what the fuck I'm doing, both in trying to properly portray the characters and in formatting this work. Connor might be a lil bit out of character at times because I'm not exactly used to writing him yet? But aside from that, enjoy?? I guess. Tell me everything I've done wrong in the comments; bug me to actually write the next chapter. Or just chat, I like talking to people.
> 
> (As a note, the name of this work and all chapter titles come from "Ghost of You" by 5 Seconds of Summer.)

The bottle in Connor’s hand was half empty. Some of the pills littered the sink and the plush bathmat underneath him, some of them had made it to his stomach. He ended up on the floor, though he couldn’t recall when he laid down, but he must have because… well, he was on the floor, and he would have known if he fell. At least, he would have thought so.  


The world around him kept spinning between black and white, between the back of his eyelids and the pristine tiles that he was ruining because he ruins everything, right? The smell of vomit permeated the air every time he drifted back into consciousness, and that just made him want to go back to sleep, so he did, embracing the warmth over the shivering cold of his bathroom. The water was running hot, and steam filled his vision and fogged up the mirror, but it was too cold to stay awake. It was warmer when he was asleep.  


The next time he woke up, some indiscernible period of time later, he was provoked awake by a shriek, then a couple utterances of his name, then his mother’s. Connor couldn’t focus his eyes enough to tell who it is, but it might have been Zoe, so some part of him rallied to snap at her to just leave him alone, but trying to get his voice to work set his whole body on fire, and vomit rose up in his throat and stayed there, not reaching the floor. It was unpleasant. It felt worse than the ice from before.  


Maybe-Zoe was saying something to him, and the part of him still functioning recognized that she sounded angry and scared. She had every right to be angry; she was always angry. It was the scared part that confused him, that part he couldn’t understand. But he figured that he would be dead soon anyways, so what did it matter, really?  


Connor went back to sleep. He was exhausted.  


° • ° • °  


The ground beneath him was cold and rough. Even before he opened his eyes, Connor knew that that was wrong. He couldn’t remember much, but he remembered the pills, so if he was waking up, it should have been in a hospital bed. Unless, perhaps, he’d been wrong about heaven and hell’s existence, but a cautious peek from between barely open eyelids didn’t reveal fire and brimstone. Instead, he was lying on the pavement in front of a store that he vaguely recognized having seen before.  


He must have looked homeless, sprawled out on the street, because no one spared him so much as a pitiful glance as they walked by, and he was glad for that. Connor really was not in the mood for talking to people while he worked on processing what the fuck had just happened to him. How did he get there, for one? Why was he not dead? That was another pressing question.  


Perhaps Larry had thrown him onto the street. No, that was impossible. His mother would never let him, and he vaguely recalled a call to 911, and a hospital would absolutely never let him. Plus, if he were to drop Connor off somewhere, it would a) be significantly farther away than this and b) in an insane asylum somewhere so he didn’t have so much as the possibility of having to deal with him again.  


Every possible explanation that came to Connor’s mind immediately was followed by him debunking that explanation. He couldn’t have just walked out of the house in the middle of overdosing; he couldn’t have gotten high and imagined all of this because Larry had taken his stash just the day before. There was nothing that made any feasible sense, and thinking up possibilities was positively dizzying.  


With a groan, Connor threw himself into a standing position, narrowly dodging a passing pedestrian who practically tried to walk through him as if he weren’t there. “Watch where the fuck you’re walking!” he cursed after the man, but he didn’t turn around. Connor scoffed, flipping him the bird for good measure even though he wasn’t looking. “Rude.”  


Keeping his gaze firmly planted on his shoes, Connor began to walk. Where, he wasn’t sure yet. He just picked a direction that felt right (away from the guy who had tried to plow through him) and walked.  


Barely more than a block from where he’d started, someone actually ran into him, their shoulders ramming into each other and sending Connor stumbling to the side with a surprising amount of force.  


“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Connor spat at the man’s back. No response. Not even so much as a twitch to show that he’d heard Connor at all. Feeling reckless and angry as ever, Connor chased after him and reached out to grab a hold of his arm. “I said: What the fuck is –”  


Connor watched as his hand stuck onto his jacket-clad bicep for a moment before it passed right through his arm. His anger fizzled to a confused halt as he stared at his still outstretched hand in detached horror. Mind whirling to understand, another theory, more horrendously preposterous than the others he’d considered previously, came to mind. As much as he wanted to squash it with embittered logic and facts, what he’d just seen made it possible. Connor could be a ghost.  


But that was ridiculous, so Connor kept walking, now making more of a point to side step out of the way of those few people he came by who were walking in the other direction as him alongside keeping a steady, almost paranoid watch behind him as well, not wanting to see someone materialize through his body in the unlikely case that he was actually a ghost and not just going clinically insane.  


Connor wasn’t keeping track of time, so he wasn’t sure how long he had been walking when he came across the park. A dull ache resounded through his potentially non-corporeal being. He recognized this park. When he’d been younger, when things had been better, this was the park their family had taken Connor and Zoe to when the old apple orchard was closed. It was closer, more convenient. Connor would give Zoe a push to start her on the swings, then they’d compete to see who could go higher. A couple of sprained ankles and wrists later, they were banned from jumping off the swings by a concerned Cynthia Murphy.  


Concerned hadn’t always been her default. Now, it was, and frankly, it was annoying. She treated Connor like he was made of glass, like she lived in constant fear of him shattering and the shards impaling her. Even the slightest push could weaponize him, and she was so gentle. Connor hated it.  


Drawn in by memories, Connor made his way to the playground in the middle of the park, currently devoid of any children or parents who might grow suspicious of a lone teenager on the swings. That was, if he wasn’t a ghost and was in fact, just crazy and delusional, which he wanted to believe more than the ironic prospect that he was his own proof of the existence of the supernatural.  


But when he sat down on the swings, they didn’t move in the slightest, and that really was not helping him to convince himself that he was not dead. If he were just dead, Connor was pretty sure that he wouldn’t mind that. An afterlife as a ghost, stuck wandering the world he hated when he was alive, that was the part he wasn’t so fond of. Feebly, he attempted to get the swing to move, but it didn’t budge.  


It was a bizarre feeling. Connor could feel the cold metal of the chains against his palms, and he could feel the stiff plastic of the seat pressing up against him uncomfortably, but none of it molded or reacted the way he expected. The seat didn’t settle to suit his weight, the sand felt completely solid beneath his feet, he’d left no footprints, and no matter how hard he tried, the swing wouldn’t move. Connor watched again as his hands passed through the metal chains when he tried to yank himself forwards.  


Were anyone able to see him, Connor would have been embarrassed, but there was no one around, and apparently he was actually a ghost, so they wouldn’t see him anyways. Instead, Connor used his frustration to experiment, practically throwing himself off the swings and lashing out at the metal pole that framed the swing set. His foot, boot and all, passed through the metal like it was air, and Connor lost his balance. On instinct, he grabbed at the chain to steady himself. To his surprise, it worked, allowing him to catch himself, but it didn’t rattle or give any indication of having been touched. Somehow, that was worse than if he had fallen.  


A sense of exhaustion swept over him all at once, something he was used to after an outburst. Connor got angry, then he got tired. That was how it worked. It was a little different this time, felt a little more in his head than the full body exhaustion that he was accustomed to, but he supposed that was just a part of being dead, so he collapsed into the swing and leaned bodily against the chain on his right, refusing to pay attention to the fact that it didn’t move.  


Connor tried not to think about his history with this park, tried not to think about the fact that he knew the way home from here, so why on earth wasn’t he going there instead of hanging out on the swing set? At least there, he might have something to do, but no matter how long the thought took to settle in his mind, Connor couldn’t bring himself to leave.  


Eventually, two more figures joined him in the otherwise empty park. Freshly out of school, he imagined, given that it was, after all, a school day. Unless time worked differently for the dead, and more than one night had passed between his dying and subsequent waking up on the pavement halfway across town.  


They were a mother and son, and Connor made an effort to not focus on them. It felt weird to stare, and he still wasn’t certain that he wasn’t insane. They might be able to see him, and that possibility kept Connor’s gaze focused pointedly away from where they were sat on the grass, talking too far away from Connor for him to know what they were discussing.  


Not too long after he’d first noticed their arrival, the little boy was bounding towards the play area. His mother chased closely behind him, forcing him to stop before he arrived at the sand to take off his shoes. Now that she was closer to him, Connor realized that there was something familiar about her. He knew that he’d seen her before, but was at a loss for where.  


“You know the rules, Ev,” Connor heard her say. “You have to take your shoes off before you step in the sand, okay? Otherwise the sand all gets stuck in there, and you track it all across the house.” Sparing no time, the kid, Ev, was tearing off his shoes and stuffing his socks into them. “There we go,” his mom encouraged, leaving her own pair of flats next to his sneakers.  


They made their way towards the swing set, where Connor was sitting. Quite suddenly, he felt uncomfortable. This was weird, could possibly be seen as predatory, him just sitting on the swings and watching this mother with her young son. All thoughts of whether or not they could see him flew out the window, he was too focused on what was going to happen next. He tensed, ready to snap off something about how it was a public park if she tried to get him off the swings.  


But she didn’t. She didn’t even acknowledge that he was there, just walked around the swings and asked her son, “Which one do you want?”  


The kid laughed, going to sit down on the swing Connor wasn’t sitting on. “The empty one, Mom!” he giggled like it was the obvious answer.  


And shit, that meant that he could see him, and that meant that Connor was just crazy, like his dad always said. He was crazy, not a ghost, not dead, just somehow alive after the incident in the bathroom between his and Zoe’s bedrooms. Connor berated himself silently for letting himself think any differently.  


Connor stood jerkily, straining against every impulse that told him to just bear through it and not make eye contact. He’d barely made it two steps forward before the kid was talking to him.  


“Where are you going?” he asked, and a cautious glance backwards showed that he was definitely talking to Connor. The kid was looking right at him, and it made Connor wince. He had never been good with kids.  


Connor was saved from responding by the mom. “Who are you talking to?” she asked, following her son’s gaze to where Connor was still mostly facing away from them. She looked through him, like he didn’t exist, like she was just entertaining the idea of someone being there. It made Connor more confused than he already was, and his head started reeling tying to play catch up.  


The kid just looked up at his mom and chuckled like what she’d said was funny because it was obvious that he could see him clear as day. “To him!” he told his mother, flashing her a bright smile that was missing a couple of teeth. When he looked back to Connor, his brow furrowed with what Connor assumed to be curiosity. The right corner of lip curled up into a pursed smile. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Mine’s Evan.”  


Too stunned to do anything else, Connor stupidly spat out his name, nothing more. He couldn’t help but to flinch when he heard his own voice. He sounded confused. He sounded like he didn’t believe that it was his own name. (He sounded as crazy as he probably was.)  


Evan didn’t seem to notice, just dutifully reported the new information back to his mother, who simply hummed and told Evan to say that it was nice to meet Connor.  


Evan did, and Connor’s only response was to stare at him dumbfounded. Evan cocked his head to one side, smile falling a little. “Are you okay?” he followed, voice a touch too bright for the question and for the potential answers.  


“That’s none of your business, kid,” he answered, more than a little weirded out by the whole exchange. It came out harsher than he intended, and Evan definitely reacted, frowned a little more, and all of it was just becoming a bit too much for Connor, who still couldn’t figure out what the fuck was happening, and it would be unbecoming to have his impending meltdown in front of some six year old kid, so Connor turned back on his heel and started to walk away again.  


“Bye!” Evan called after him, voice a little quieter, but still cheery. “It was nice meeting you.” It sounded more like an afterthought, but the wind carried the words to Connor’s ears.  


It was as Connor began to get farther away that the overwhelming urge to sleep hit him. Suddenly, he could barely keep his eyes open, and every step he took felt more dangerously wobbly. Connor could feel that if he didn’t lie to down rest, he would more than likely collapse.  


He was too tired to think about it in any kind of coherent manner, but in some distant part of his brain, it struck him that this was the first physical sensation he’d felt since he woke up. Even when the man had bumped his shoulder on the street, there should have been a sharp pain in the moment following the impact, but instead, it was just a moment’s pressure that vanished the second their shoulders were no longer in contact.  


Stumbling as though bleary and drunken, Connor lurched across the park in search of a bench. A small group of children, chaperoned by a coach, were walking opposite him, and though it occurred to him that it would be a good idea to step out of the way, he didn’t, just braced himself for the possible impact as he continued to walk.  


It shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did that they just phased through his legs without so much as a glance in his direction. Connor stopped in his tracks, turning to face the group, to stare at them. He tried to focus, but god, he was much too tired to do that. Connor let out a frustrated groan and continued on his way, park bench now in sight. The groan was louder than it probably should have been, but no one reacted, no one commented.  


Finally, he arrived at the bench, all but collapsing onto its surface, cold, hard, and unforgiving. Not that even the sand had shifted under Connor’s feet. In an instant, he could feel himself drifting off to sleep.  


With any luck, Connor would wake up again in his bed or on the bathroom floor. With more, he wouldn’t wake up at all.


	2. Dancing Through The House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Connor found himself faced with a significantly younger looking Evan Hansen. Evan Hansen, who he now recognized as the kid from the park. Evan Hansen, whose cast Connor had signed, who had broken his arm falling out of a tree. Evan Hansen, whose letter he’d seen on the printer, who had written about Zoe and hope. Evan Hansen, who he’d blown up on.  
> Evan Hansen. Whose letter was sitting folded neatly in the pocket of his hoodie."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I think I was ever going to finish this chapter when I abandoned it for about two months? No. Did I end up finishing it? Yes. Is that surprising? Absolutely.  
> No, but in all seriousness, I hope that you guys like this chapter, and if any of you are coming back to it after having read the first chapter when it was initially published, I really am sorry for the wait. Can't promise that it won't happen again, because lord knows it might, but for now, new chapter! Isn't that exciting?

The next time, he was inside. Connor woke up with a disoriented groan, lying in the same position he’d fallen asleep in, but in a different place. For a moment, in his post-sleep haze, Connor freaked out, but the moment he shot to his feet, all of the memories came whirling back. The bathroom, waking up by the storefront, that kid and his mom. He was a ghost. Right. That still didn’t quite explain how he’d found himself curled up on a stranger’s couch after falling asleep on a park bench, but it did calm him. At the very least, no one would call the police on him for this unintentional home invasion.

Connor let himself fall back onto the couch, wincing when he hit it with more force than he expected. Right. Weird physics. Connor couldn’t move his surroundings, and nothing shifted to accommodate his weight. Probably because he was a ghost, and ghosts don’t weigh anything.

For a short while, Connor just stared at the ceiling above him, making it blur and focus to pass the time. It grew tedious quickly (not that Connor had any way to gauge how much time had passed), so he threw himself into a standing position and went exploring around the room.

Whoever it was that lived here didn’t spend much time cleaning up, that much was obvious. There were piles of half-folded laundry on one of the arm chairs and a stack of unsorted mail bleeding across the coffee table. Nothing like his own home, where anything that came through the door was quickly sorted into a box, bin, or drawer of some kind. Connor’s mother spent most of her waking hours assuring that their house looked like it was fresh out of a catalogue. Perfect and pristine. It was suffocating.

Connor drove himself forward, carefully sidestepping around the various items that littered the floor. There was a pair of shoes (flats that looked sophisticated but well-worn in), an only partially unpacked bag of groceries, and a notebook that looked like it had fallen off of the table.

The mess would have driven his mother insane, but Connor relished in the chaos. There was something peaceful about the disorganization that soothed the persistent feeling that he shouldn’t be there. It wasn’t enough to get rid of the tightness in his chest, but it was enough to ease it.

Hesitantly, he turned a corner and made his way down the hallway, stopping in front of the first door he came across. It was mostly closed, just barely enough space between the doorframe and where the door had come to rest to peek through and examine. A bathroom. 

Connor’s vision flashed white for a second as he stumbled back, feet pushing him hastily backwards and into the door opposite the bathroom, the pristine white tile, the memory of pills. His hands clawed at the door behind him, the force drawing his body through the door. He fell onto his back and let out a wince, but the impact didn’t hurt.

Forcing in a breath to steady himself, Connor shook the image of the bathroom out of his mind. All the traces of it, the blinding white, Zoe’s screaming, the dreadfully present need to sleep: Connor boxed them up and shoved them in the back of his mind in deliberate ignorance, then stood and jammed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, playing absent-mindedly with the piece of paper tucked away in his right pocket as he scanned the room as a distraction.

It was a bedroom, cleaner than the living room had been, and Connor would have believed that no one actually lived in this room if it weren’t for the full laundry hamper and the twenty dollar bill sitting on the corner of the bed with a bright yellow sticky note on it. Connor leaned in to read it. 

_I’m sorry I can’t be home! :) Get some takeout, okay? I don’t want you starving tonight. I love you! – Mom_

That sense that he didn’t belong crept back up his throat. Connor swallowed it back with a step towards the bookshelf on the opposite side of the room. His own was mostly full of classic novels alongside the odd piece of modern fiction. Whoever this kid was, he obviously wasn’t interested in novels. The only pieces of fiction on the shelves were books Connor recognized as assigned reading from middle school literature classes. Mostly, the shelves were populated with non-fiction books on different parts of nature, ranging from kids’ books to practical encyclopedias for trees to an extensive guide on how to cultivate a flower garden. 

Connor couldn’t help it; he laughed. What kind of kid was actually interested in that shit? Connor had probably sat in this section of the library when he was avoiding people, that’s how often people actually showed interest in nature books.

“Mom? Is that you?” A voice called from inside the house.

Shit. Connor must have missed the sound of the door opening. 

Shit. Whoever had just come in could hear him. How? He was so sure that he was a ghost, but if this person could hear him… Well, frankly, he wasn’t sure what that meant.

Connor inhaled as his brain finally worked its way back to logic, to how this situation didn’t end with him being dragged out of the house in handcuffs on suspicion of home invasion. Maybe this person was reacting to something else. Maybe there was a fresh pot of coffee or a dog who’d made a noise he’d missed. Maybe it wasn’t Connor’s bark of laughter they’d heard. God, he hoped it wasn’t Connor’s bark of laughter they’d heard.

“Mom?” An edge of nervousness lined his voice now, and it was much closer this time. Before he even had time to process, the door to the room Connor had found himself in was opening to reveal a significantly younger looking Evan Hansen. Evan Hansen, who he now recognized as the kid from the park. Evan Hansen, whose cast Connor had signed, who had broken his arm falling out of a tree. Evan Hansen, whose letter he’d seen on the printer, who had written about Zoe and hope. Evan Hansen, who he’d blown up on.

Evan Hansen. Whose letter was sitting folded neatly in the pocket of his hoodie.

Connor’s hands flew from their resting place like the paper had somehow burned him, but aside from that, he was frozen in place. Distantly, he knew that he should try to explain, but instead, he just let Evan Hansen come to whatever conclusions jumped to his mind.

A moment of silence passed before Connor decided he couldn’t bear it. “Your mom left you money,” he found himself saying, nodding towards the bill on the bed. Okay, maybe he should have thought that through more.

The wide look of shock on Evan Hansen’s face narrowed into confusion. His eyes darted to the money, and Connor watched the fear brew in his eyes. It was a subtle shift. His eyes widened a little, the crease between his brows grew more prominent, and the confused curl of his lip softened to a slight part. 

“You can take it if you want it,” Evan Hansen spewed out after the silence festered for a moment. “It’s really not that important! We don’t have a lot in this house that’s worth much. And I’m not just trying to get rid of you. I mean, I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m lying, you know?” He let out a wheezy laugh that interrupted the end of the thought and made it feel incomplete.

“I’m not going to take your dinner money,” was all that Connor could say with his mind still reeling as it was.

“Okay.” There was another pause. “Um… why are – why are you here then?”

Connor wished that he had a good answer. All he knew about ghosts was probably bullshit pulled from weird teen romance novels he’d overheard people chatting about. He had read Sleepy Hollow at some point too, and there might have been a ghost in that. He couldn’t remember. 

The general though-line that Connor could recall was unfinished business, and according to the logic that only Evan Hansen could see him, that business was tied to him. The question was how. And why Evan Hansen, of all the people in the world?

“Why do you care?” He snapped, though the answer was obvious. “And why are you staring at me like that?”

Objectively, he knew that they were stupid questions. Because you’re in my house. Or perhaps, because I’m afraid that you’re going to murder me. Both very good answers. His brain cycled through a million more while, across from him, Evan Hansen opened and closed his mouth like a fish dragged to shore.

“Have I seen you before?” Not the response Connor was expecting. It was his turn to sputter.

“What?”

“It’s just that you – well… you look familiar.”

And there were two explanations for that. One, the Connor of Evan Hansen’s present looked close enough to the current ghost Connor that Evan couldn’t quite place where he knew him from. Alternatively, he remembered meeting Connor in the park however many years ago. Both were viable options.

Connor chose not to respond, searching quickly for a way to change the subject by surveying his surroundings. After a quick moment, he latched onto a fresh looking bruise blooming on Evan’s arm. He gestured vaguely towards it. “Where’d you get the bruise?”

The response came quicker than any of his previous ones had. “Oh, uh… Jared and I were messing around and he accidentally knocked me into something.”

“Bullshit,” Connor responded before he could filter himself, but he flinched inwardly when Evan looked back up at him with discomfort written all over his face. Cursing in front of kids was a new one for him, but it was the truth. Connor knew a practiced lie when he heard one, and Evan wasn’t a particularly good liar. His words were too carefully placed to be anything but a lie. “Lying’s a bad habit to have.”

They were sage words of hypocritical wisdom, and the desire to laugh at himself pulled Connor’s lips into a half-contained smirk. 

“If you tell me why you’re here,” Evan began, a look of horror quickly overtaking his moment of shaky confidence, “I’ll tell you where I got the bruise.”

Connor bit down on the inside of his lip. No matter what he said, Evan wasn’t going to believe him. Hell, he was having trouble believing himself. Mostly just to humor the idea of it out loud, where it was real, Connor lifted his arms up in a shrug. 

“Fine.” Evan perked up a little, an eager smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I’m a ghost,” Connor said, keeping it plain and simple. The words were foreign and uncomfortable on his tongue. Even with Evan looking pointedly at the floor with only half of his face visible, Connor could pinpoint the moment Evan’s face fell with the realization that he wouldn’t be getting an answer that made sense. That sparked Connor’s indignation, and he moved to prove his words by taking two level strides towards Evan.

“You don’t believe me?” he challenged, seeing the fear bloom once more. Connor raised his left hand up to press against Evan’s shoulder, ignoring the initial contact and pushing through. Much to his surprise, Evan stumbled back from the force. 

“Ow,” he grumbled, rubbing at the spot on his shoulder while Connor stared on.

A moment passed where Connor processed the information before he spoke again. “No, no, no, no, no. That’s not right. I can’t do that.” He whirled around, looking for something glass, something he could break. “I can’t do that.” There was a lamp on the bedside table just to his right. Connor tried to push it to the floor, exerting all of his force on its white base. This time, it didn’t defy his expectations. His hands passed right through and he stumbled, still not accustomed to the momentum. “See?” he said once he’d regained his balance, voice rising in pitch and in volume. He wasn’t sure who was talking to anymore. “I’m not crazy. I’m not!”

Evan was frozen in the door. Connor could see that he was afraid of him. Afraid that he was going to hurt him. He’d seen that look on Evan’s face before, in the computer lab, when he’d blown a fuse on him the first time. Connor wanted to care that this kid was probably going to be scarred for life because of him, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

“I’m not crazy,” Connor repeated in a deadly whisper. His voice carried across the silent void between them. He could tell from the way that Evan flinched. For a long moment after, the only sound was Connor’s heavy breathing levelling back to normal.

“Jared was teasing me because he thinks that I like this girl in our grade because I was stuttered when she asked me a question, but I stutter when I’m talking to anybody, and he knows that, so I don’t really see why that matters. But he was pushing me around, and I lost my balance and hit a doorknob. And I guess that that was kind of my fault, since I’m the one who lost my balance, but Jared didn’t apologize even after he saw that I had a bruise from it, but if I tell my mom, she’ll tell his mom, and then he’ll get mad at me for snitching, and wow, you probably don’t want to know any of that. Sorry, I’ll shut up now.”

Once the kid started talking, it was like he couldn’t stop, the story spilling from him like he’d just been waiting for the right time to uncap the bottle he held his emotions in.

“Why are you friends with him then? He seems like an asshole.” It was actually a question that had popped into his mind before, the first time he’d noticed Evan Hansen’s existence around the end of junior year. For some reason, he hung around Jared Kleinman, who had always been keen on finding Connor when he felt his shittiest and knocking him down even further with a childish jab. Kleinman was a pest, but Connor had seen Evan try to reign him in a couple of times when he was being particularly vicious. He appreciated the gesture, not that he’d ever done anything to show it.

“We’re not exactly friends,” Evan spoke with a hesitant laugh. “Our moms… um… they know each other.”

“So who are your friends?” Connor wasn’t sure what had prompted him to ask, but he was curious. Nervous wreck aside, he was easy enough to be around. He must have somebody better than Jared Kleinman, the epitome of the nerdy high school douchebag.

Evan just shook his head, a wistful smile growing on his face. “I – I don’t really…”

Connor got the message. Something he’d said to the Evan of his present flashed in his mind. “What do you say we pretend that we’re friends?” 

Evan’s head snapped up to look at him. “O-okay?”

Connor managed a grimace of a smile, noting the newfound heaviness of his eyelids. Quickly, he was growing tired, and he fought back a yawn to respond. “Deal.”

With Evan still standing in the doorway, Connor chose the path of least resistance, bracing himself for an impact he knew wasn’t coming as he walked through the nightstand, then through the wall. It didn’t feel like anything, but it made him uneasy nonetheless. He passed down the hall, laid back down on the couch he’d woken on, and didn’t try to fight the coming sleep. 


End file.
